Life changes

My life has been making some pretty drastic changes this past month. God is taking me so many place that I had never planned on going -- but His plans are fortunately better than my own! After much prayer, I really feel God calling me away from Texas Tech. I have some super incredible friends here that i am going to miss so much! But the time for change has come and I'm so ready to start a new chapter of my life wherever God calls me to be. For few weeks now I've has this urning to be in Arizona and a desire to finish college there. I had no set plans on where I would go, where I would live or how I would pay for it, but God is definitely providing an opportunity for me to be there. It took a little talking, but my family is becoming more open to the idea which is a huge blessing! I don't for the first time in a long time what is going to happen next, but I'm really looking forward to it!

So far here are college options:

- Arizona State University (my number one pick thus far) - with a major in Graphic information Technology and a marketing minor

- Northern Arizona University - with a major in Visual Communication Design

- The University of Arizona - With a major in Studio Art and an emphasis in Graphic Technology

So far I'm really leaning towards ASU, but I'm listening to God's plan above my own. After all, His plan is the perfect one.

Ready or not.. here I come!

Yayyy I'm so excited to be coming back to blogging!! Updates to come!

It's been one week

Well I've now been in Santa Cruz for one week! Here is a little run down of my week so far and some of the awesome things God's been doing out here:


Monday: I flew out of Dallas and arrive in San Jose around 1:30 California time. I took a shuttle to the Peter Pan Motel where I am living this summer. One of the girls from CRU on my shuttle was studying to be a wedding planner also which was pretty cool. we are both overly obsessed with weddings which was pretty fun to talk about for the ride over to the motel. So we got to the motel and long story short met everyone. Everyone was so sweet and it was a lot easier to get to know everyone than I thought it would have been.

Tuesday: This was a very chill day. We still kind of played some get to know each other games and such things. Then that afternoon we had orientation which was where we basically got to know some of the materials will be using. We also had a police officer come talk to us about safety out here. It's a pretty dangerous city so we got a lot of helpful information from him about gangs, homeless, not wearing red, drugs and night safety things. Later that night we went out to dinner with our Action groups. Our action groups are groups of about five to six people of the same sex. Most of them are in our assigned rooms. So my action group consists of all six of my girl roommates - one of which is our action group leader who is on staff with CRU. Any ways, we went out to dinner at this amazing Italian restaurant called kiantis. It was very yummy. After dinner we didn't do anything exciting (unless you count sleep as exciting) because we all still had a little case of the jet lags.


Wednesday: This was one of my most favorite days! We started off the day by having a soul to soul with the girls in my action group. We basically carved 5 hours out of our day for the five of us students to basically share our life stories, where we are and have been in our relationship with Christ and basically just the highs and lows of our lives. It was so amazing! It was awesome to hear all the stories. When coming to Santa Cruz I felt really alone in that no one else had gone through what I had, or shared the same struggles or highs. But to my amazement they had. We spent the entire morning/early afternoon on the beach soaking up some sun and sharing our lives together. About half way through we decided to take a little lunch break and ride a few rides on the boardwalk. It was such a lovely little afternoon. After we were through with our soul to souls we had "fun time" with dinner. This was when I took all of the seal pictures. We split up into teams and had fun little competitions. We did a Frisbee game, an egg toss, buried someone in the sand, and did a little scavenger hunt. It was great bonding time with people I hadn't had a chance to get to know a whole lot. That night, that I recall, nothing exciting really went down.



Thursday: honestly I don't remember at all what I did on Thursday... sorry :/ lol
Actually maybe Thursday was the day we were assigned to our service projects. There are six or seven different service projects that we have the privilege of serving on this summer in order to make sure the project runs smoothly. We could choose between the following: Meeting Coordinators, Administrative, Special projects (aka the yearbook, newsletters etc.), Social/Community, Outreach, and that's all I can remember right now. I chose to be on, of course, the Social/Community project team. Our group is in charge of planning all of the events, parties and so forth for the summer. We are also in charge of creating a sense of community and unity among the project. I will explain later some things we have done so far. Also I think on Thursday night I went to the beach and played football - 13 people per team... it was insane! Afterwards my roommate Brittney from UNC Wilmington, Matt from OSU and I went and got some yummy ice cream from Marini's and walked and talked for a little while.



Friday: We had job orientation! YAY! SO I got to know all about what I would be doing at one of my jobs on the boardwalk. In case I had forgotten to mention, I have two jobs this summer. I will be alternating weekly between working in food service on the boardwalk and working as the project chef. Another girl, Angela, and I will be trading weekly between those two jobs. So since I wok on the boardwalk the week of the 8th, she will be the project cook. Next week we will switch and so on throughout the summer. After orientation we had more evangelism training at High Street Community Church. Once that was finished we went to this amazing winery to have dinner and worship. It was UHHHmazing!! If you know me at all you know that I have a tiny dream of one day owning my own winery! Okay tiny was definitely the wrong word... I have a huge dream of owning my own winery!!! I of course want to be an event planner, but having an estate is definitely what I would love. Worship was so amazing out there. It was so beautiful! We were in Soquel on a mountain that over looked the vineyard and the ocean. It was so perfect!



Saturday: Today was my first full day of work! I worked at pizza hut! Yum! It was the 1st time i had ever worked in the food business so that was kinda cool i guess. after work i think we kind of just chilled and did little fun things around the pan.

Sunday: All of us here are divided up by rooms into four different churches to attend on Sunday. For this summer there are 6 guys and 6 of us girls that are helping out at Highstreet Church. So today was out first day at the church and I loved it! About 4 or 5 of us worked in the 1's through 5's. Its was the best time ever! I love playing games and readying books and being imaginative with kids that age. Its was so great to hear how much they already knew about the Bible. It was very impressing! After church we all went to Wendy's a few towns over. It was so yummy, but the menu wasn't the same as the one in Texas. So that was kind of disappointing because I was really craving home style chicken strips but I couldn't have them :( BOOOO! That evening was chill. 5 of us went downtown and at at Taco Bell. Then I came back and watched Les Mes with some girls. it was such a good movie!! It is definitely one of my top 5 now. After that I passed out.

So that was my week in a nutshell. Please have patience with me as I try and get everything up. Once I get caught up in my blogging I will hopefully begin posting a little bit every day. Lets pray that by Tuesday evening I am caught up.

On a serious note right now I would really like to ask for prayer from anyone that reads this. My anxiety is really starting to worsen since I've been out here. The past few days I have had bad headaches and today I had a pretty bad migraine. Emotions are so high out here and I would love it if y'all could pray that I begin to put my trust in God. Please pray that I give all my worries and fears to Him and that He takes those feelings and turns them into a desire and a hunger to proclaim His word to this lost city. Also pray that I have compassion on my coworkers. At times it can be frustrating when working with them because of their rejection of Christianity. Just pray that I have compassion on them because they are lost and they don't know the love of Christ. I want to be a light to them and to this city and I would love to be encouraged in prayer by whoever reads this.

Love you all!

California up until now...

I am finally here in Santa Cruz, CA! It is so beautiful! There are wonderful mountains right next to the beach. Oh goodness it's so so pretty! The weather is perfect. Is quite chilly in the morning but around 12 it starts to warm up very nicely. Ususally I have a light fleece on and then in the afternoon I wear a t-shirt and shorts and its pretty comfortable. We are about two blocks from the beach so its about a five minute walk down there and I ran down there the other day and it only took me a minute or two. So once you go down two blocks you hit the boardwalk which is the cutest little amusement park with rides and games and yummy food - and best of all it is right on the ocean. The point is... I have fallen in LOVE with California!

Anyways.. Before I head I out I wanted to share somethign that totally made my day today! Today we had a scavenger hunt and one of the places we had to go was down to the end of the warf. So we are on our way downt there when we hear this crazy barking noise. We see a group of people gather to the edge of the railing while pointing and "ooo"ing and "ahhh"ing. So of course we had to gather around the edge as well to see what all of the comotion was. This is what we saw...

It was amazing! We were so close we could touch them if we wanted to!

I have a video and I will try to upload it soon if this schectchy internet decides to shape up!

LOVE LOVE LOVE

The clock is ticking

I am getting even worse at this keeping up with my blog. Hopefully when I get out to California I will have many more things to share. Which by the way I am leaving in only 6 days! So little time left and things are finally starting to get a little crazy. I still have a little over $700 left to raise - and that's just the project fee, that doesn't cover airfare, food and other transportation. If you wanted to look at it in terms of the big picture it would be about $1700. Since there is only 6 days for this money to come in, I am totally having to trust it in God's hands right now. He will take care of me and I am definitely having to believe that right now. So I would so greatly appreciate that whoever reads this to keep me in your prayers as well. I do trust that he will provide. He has already provided more than I could have imagined and I am so blessed for that.
In spite of that little setback, I am having some trouble with packing. I am flying American Airlines to San Jose, and normally you are allowed to check up to two 50 lb bags without being charged. However, the airlines just decided about two weeks ago I think that passengers would only be allowed to check one 50 lb bag and the second 50 lb bag would cost $50 extra. We all know that there is no way that I cant pack for ten weeks into one 50lb bag suitcase. There is just now way. When I would come home for the weekends I would usually bring one 50 lb bag and a 30 lb bag. Thankfully they decided a few days ago that they were lowering the $50 fee to like $15 or $25. Anyways, packing will be difficult because as I think I previously mentioned I am the biggest over-packer ever!

But in other news of my life.. I had a birthday on Sunday! To celebrate I went with family to OTB for lunch and then we had a little family dinner at PF Changes to celebrate my sisters birthday which was 2 days before mine. It was a decent birthday I guess. Nice and relaxed which I don't get too often.
Oh my goodness! 6 DAYS! It's so starting to sink in. As excited as I am about spending 10 weeks living on the beach in Cali and witnessing God do amazing things that he is always so great at, I am going to miss spending the summer at home with everyone I love so much.

I'm Finished!

My first year of college is over!
I would say "finally!", but "already?!" is probably more appropriate. It felt so weird packing up my room today.. I felt as if just last week I was moving in!

-PS I don't like packing up my room! Such a pain! I couldn't believe how much stuff I took with me to college. I drove up to school with my little Chevy Blazer - which was actually kind of big when I put all of my stuff in it - and my mom and two sisters in the car. With them in the car we couldn't fold down the back seats to fit more things in there, so I took two boxes and a microwave to my roommates house so they could drive it up there. Okay.. so two boxes an a microwave... that's really not very much that I left out of my car. (We wanted to be able to see out the back window, otherwise we would have been able to fit everything in my trunk).

Here comes the part where you say.. "Of course Katy would have to do this"... At Christmas time, I had a friend who was driving home bring back a huge bag of clothes that I didn't need at school anymore. There were a TON of clothes. I had practically cleaned out my entire dresser.
Okay so a lot of clothes were removed from my room. I guess somehow I ended up shopping too much this year... and unfortunately I didn't figure this out until we were packing up my car today. (Okay you should also know that only my mom came to pick me up from school, so this time we could fold down my back seats to have more space to bring home a few things I may have bought). I had over two car loads of stuff. Well over two car loads. Today we bought a storage unit.. and I must say I did a pretty good job of filling it all up.. in addition to the full car I already had. I ended up leaving almost everything I owned back in Lubbock. So all I have right now are my clothes, shoes, accessories, movies, toiletries and maybe a few blankets. So sad I had to leave everything else behind :(

I can't wait to live in one place for the next three years! I am definitely going to be one of those people that rarely moves. Packing is for sure not my thing.

Other than packing and moving, this year has been pretty great :)

I am secretly missing it so much more than you are.
patience patience patience

Winding down

It is so sad but so exciting to see my first year at college come and go so fast. This semester especially went by so very fast! When I look back on this time one year ago, I am blown away by how much I have changed. They say that you do so much maturing your first year at college and it is so true! Through so many things tha thave happened this year, I have found who my real friends are, and really who I am. It's such a great feeling!



But I am so afraid that it is going to go by too fast. Oh how I would stay in college forever if I could. So many great times already! And I am already 1/4 of the way done! Wow, so scary to think that in 3 short years I will be out on my own - hopefuly planning weddings - supporting myself without the weekly allowence from mom and dad (I know I am definitely going to miss that part). I dont even want to think about where I am going to be in 3 years. Oh my gosh what if i'm engaged! AHH crazy! Well I'm pretty sure that wont happen.. last I checked you have to have two people to be engaged and I only have me. :) But that's all I want right now.. so I guess that works out.



Okay, I honestly have only been running on about 3 or 4 hours of sleep, so I think I am going to be lame and go to bed at 10:30 on a Saturday night! lol

I will leave you with a song that I love so so much. Enjoy!



or click here

RSC Formal

Saturday was our formal and It was so fun!
I was originally going with a certain person - who will remain unnamed despite the obviousness of who he is to anyone that knows me -but to make an unnecessary long story short, he quickly turned out to be... well... a big fat jerk for lack of better terms. So this all went down about 2 and a half or three weeks before formal, so I still had plenty of time to ask a not-so-jerk. Of course I put it off, like I do so many things sometimes, until the week of. I asked John, a guy in BYX who I'd recently met. Okay fast forward to Saturday fun!

I had two dresses, a short one and a long one. I decided to wear the long one even though it was an awkward champagne color. I went to my friends apartment to get ready, and oh my gosh I was pushed for time! I didn't even get to put on my makeup!! :( At least I still had a little left on from that day so that helped. But between hair, fashion tape and shoes, it was so stressful and nothing was working my way! Oh man, that fashion tape! I wanted to kill it! haha .. but I guess it kind of saved me that night :) Gotta love being a woman!

The guys came and picked all of us beautiful girls up! We had such a sweet little group and we all looked so good!! We were running a little late but thankfully everyone else was too. The actual formal was at a place called the Ice House. It was a gutted out warehouse that was an art museum. There was artwork all over the walls. It was actually a great place for a dance! Carinos catered and it was so yummy! The DJ was a little ehhh.. but we are the ones that make the fun, not the music or anything else. And let me tell you.. it was FUN! Such a great time! After formal a big group of us went to Daybreak and had some night time coffee and some interesting conversations for sure! I absolutely loved getting to know every date over coffee. They were all so amazing and so fun! I'm just so sad that it took so long for me to meet these wonderful men!

Okay so now I am gong to take a second to brag about these guys!! I know.. bragging.. bad.. but these guys so deserve to be appreciated for everything they did that night! I still cant get over how amazing or dates were. Just as I was starting to get so fed up with all the guys I would meet and their shadiness and inconsistencies and lack of respect, I met these ones and my thoughts definitely changed! They were so respectful to us, showered us with compliments, and were perfect gentlemen. And not because they were expecting anything, but because they genuinely wanted to. They really treated us like princesses and I am so grateful for them. Even the little things, like opening our doors, pulling out our chairs, buying us coffee, carrying things for us, walking us to our room. It was so sweet and so appreciated. If that wasn't a slap in the face from God, I don't know what is. So silly of me to think that all guys are jerks and that I will never find the one that treats me like a princess. Saturday night God showed me what I deserve and what He is capable of giving me. I loved it and I am so grateful to have met these sweet men. So thank you for putting the cherry on top of might night.
Now for the fun part.. Pictures!! :

So adorable!

Love them!
Big and little :)
Haha! We both blinked the first time we tried this, so we tried to keep our eyes wide open this time! So silly! That's actually really unattractive.. lol
Our lovely group!

Yay for future roommates!
Natalie, Nathan, me and John -- goodness I was not photogenic tonight!
They were such sweet dates!
Big & Little again but with a guest :)
After formal coffee chat

The perfect start to a perfect weekend...

What an exciting past few days it has been! So many things were going on and for the first time in a while I felt that I had not one minute to sit down and do nothing.

Thursday:
Some of my girlfriends and guy friends decided that it would be an amazing idea to paint shirts for a rave party that the BYX pledges were throwing Friday night. So we all went to Walmart to buy neon paint and black and white shirts. We went to Chris' apartment, laid down newspaper and got to work. It was so much fun! We put some paint on spoons and splatter painted our shirts. We had hot pink, neon orange, green, blue, yellow and glow in the dark paint. We got pretty creative with mixing colors and all, but it got pretty messy too. Anyways, the point is that the shirts looked awesome and it was so fun making them!

Friday:
My classes got cancelled because my professors felt like being so nice to us :) - It definitely makes my week when classes get canceled! So to make the day even more exciting I of course went shopping with my girls! First I went to Savers - it's this great thrift store that has anything and everything you could imagine.. clothing wise at least. It's so great for tacky things! So I went to savers and got some bright blue shorts and my soon to be roommate got some hot hot pink shorts. They were brighter than highlighter pink - It was amazing! Then a few other girls and I went to the mall and shopped for formal dresses. I already had one - two actually if you count my back up - but I was having some girly issues with it unfortunately and I was nervous it wouldn't work out. So I tried on a few dresses and none of them were working. I still had the same issues. Not long after I left the mall I went right back! There was a dress one of my friends wanted so we ran back out to get it. When I was there I found a really cute kelley green strapless pencil dress. So cute! It would be perfect with my leopard heals! And best of all it was only $16!!! Yeah, so I broke down and bought it. it is so worth it! But, of course- a "but", when I got home I tried on my original dress and the issues ended up being fixable. YAY!

After so much shopping we had built up an appetite so we went and got some yummy food :) Mmm I had nachos! Oh my gosh so many calories, but fortunately I was about to burn all of them off and then some!! After dinner, a few girls and I went to Sugarbrowns coffee to listen to some friends perform. It was so nice, but so crowded! we didn't stay for too long because we had even more on the agenda! At about 930ish we scurried back to my room to get ready for the BYX rave!! We were already late - which didn't really phase me because if there is one thing that I absolutely love it is being fashionably late - and we didn't want to miss too much fun so we threw on our neon shorts and our splatter-painted shirts and we were off! The rave was AMAZING!! It is so hard for me to think of any time where I have had more fun than I had that night! Two BYX pledges were the DJs and they did a phenomenal job! The music was great, the dancing was great.. even the sweating (and I HATE sweating more than anything) was great :) It was SO much fun!! Here are a few pictures from the rave:

The two DJs and my sweet little RSC formal date in the middle (More to come on the formal soon). Their shirts were SO cool! The little bars one the shirt actually moved to the beat of the music being played!

Cheryl, Karinne, Me and Natalie in our painted shirts! :)

Nathan and Nick (I painted Nicks shirt for him - doesn't it look great!)

Natalie and Me - Roomies-to-be!!

Laura, me and Michela under the black lights!

It was so much fun! And this is just the beginning of my weekend.. there is more to come! :)

Busy Busy Busy

Oh my gosh I'm really bad a the whole keeping up with this blog thing.
Well things have been very busy... getting ready for finals, getting ready for Foundation camp, doing last minute things for SANTA CRUZ this summer - which still hasn't really sunk in that I'm actually going.. but I don't think it will hit me until I'm there unpacking), and making my schedule for next year ..blah blah blah.

I strongly dislike registering for classes. It is the most frustrating thing. I can honestly say that I have changed my schedule 7 times, and I'm still not sure that its what I want. So far I am taking public policy (boring), economics (also boring), intimate relationships (I definitely have things to learn in that class haa), Food systems management and Travel &Tourism.. and I think thats all.
Anyways, that's my boring schedule for next semester.

This week I have been doing so much to get ready for summer project in Santa Cruz this summer. I finally sent out all of my support letters, and I got the last of my forms in on Thursday. It have definitely been a crazy month, but it is going to be so worth it! Since about a week before spring break when I found out I was accepted, I have been non stop preparing for this trip. Last week I sat down with one of my sisters who went to Santa Cruz with CRU last summer. She went over my schedule with me and prepared me for thing I should expect while I'm there. It sounds SO amazing! I have a few nerves but other than that I am SO ready to finish school and get out there ASAP! I really cant wait to see what God will do through us this summer!

Thats really all that has been going on. Nothing too exciting!

LOVE

Love is a peculiar thing

(FYI this is my ALL TIME favorite movie :) )

mmm well said. "enough now"

I have come to realize the hard way that you can't make love happen to you. It's not something that can be forced upon someone. I'm pretty sure that God says it best:

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.

Even though no one reads this, I wanted to take a minute to tell everyone thank you and I am sorry that I didn't listen when y'all told me to be careful. So sad that I have to learn so many things the hard way, but I guess when I learn it the hard way it's easier to not turn back.

I am probably making no sense!! hah
My point is, I'm working on accepting what the real kind of love is, and in the process I'm finding that when I totally seek God, this kind of love will find me. AMEN :)

On a lighter, less sappy note.. I have decided that I WILL be going to RSC formal and I WILL be looking HOTT :) Here is my AMAZING dress :

Of course I will be dressing it up a lot with rhinestones :)

Procrastinating

So I have recently learned that procrastinating is one of my many talents. Whether that is a good thing or not is a totally different story.

I am definitely going to have to start disciplining myself with this sweet little blog. And hopefully I can get used to writing in it every day... or at least more than once a month. :)

Anyways.. For a little bit of fun, I've decided to share with you some pictures from my CRUISE that I went on last week. What a great way to spend spring break!!... mmmm ya not when you get sea sick :/

Enjoy!!


This is our boat














The view from our window
It's a great one huh?














I was bored before dinner :)





















The view from the back














Sad because we got seasick :(














They made us new little towel animals EVERY night!!! :)
One of the best parts of the entire trip haha














The lobbyish area














The Ceiling














A Pyramid














In Cozumel. .. LOVE the enthusiasm Anna..














Eating














Pretending not to eat














Oh my goodness. Let me tell you! ALL we did was eat!! HA oh how awful it felt to get off the boat :)

New to the world of blogging

I am so excited that i finally have a blog!! And trust me, I am going to be taking full advantage of it. :)
I will tell more about myself later. Right now I have to get back on with my busy day of classes, but I promise I will be back!

Love Love LOVE
Katy